Vegan Gluten free Christmas Cake – Fruit Cake

I am not sure why fruit cakes have a bad rap. They used to be a treat we would wait for around Christmas. Soft, Sweet, full of fun stuff for us kids I guess. Maybe we just lucked out with a fabulous bakery. 🙂

I make versions of my Spelt spiced fruit cake if not baking a load of cookies every year. This version is adapted from spelt flour version. I use almond flour and rice flour to keep it gluten-free. The cake keeps well refrigerated for a few weeks if you use liquor or a week with orange juice. Serve as is or with a bourbon/rum glaze! Add nuts or seeds that you like, some dates, apricots, cherries. I also added some roasted sunflower seeds and chia seeds, so the cake is also great to snack on.

Add juice, dried fruit, nuts, seeds, and chia seeds to a bowl and mix. Let sit refrigerated for a few hours to overnight.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (180 C). Line a loaf pan with parchment or grease it.

Take the juice bowl out from the fridge. Add sugar, oil and vanilla to the bowl and mix in until sugar is combined. In another bowl, add the dry ingredients and whisk. (You can omit the citric acid from the dry. I like the air it adds to gluten-free baked goods. See my glutenfree cinnamon roll bread post for details about the use of citric acid)

Combine the dry and wet and mix to make a batter. Drop in parchment lined pan.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes. Check with a toothpick from the center of the cake. it should come out almost clean. Bake longer if needed.

Cool for 10 minutes, then remove from the pan. Cool completely before slicing (cool lightly covered by a towel). Store on the counter covered for upto 2 days, refrigerate for upto 10, freeze for upto 2 months. If using liquor, you can store the cake on the counter and refrigerator for longer.

Recipe Notes

Glaze options: You can glaze this cake with some fruit preserves heated up and mixed with rum or bourbon. Or heat 2 tbsp vegan butter, 4 tbsp sugar and 2 tbsp liquor until sugar dissolves to make a smooth glaze.

Make this with regular flour, use 1.25 to 1.5 cups of spelt flour or a mix of whole wheat and all purpose. or use my spiced fruit cake recipe

This makes me so happy! As a child (and pre-vegan days as an adult) I used to look forward to receiving my grandmother’s fruitcake every year. She is no longer with us, but the nostalgia is still there. Thank you for sharing this, it will be wonderful to be able to continue her traditions with something everyone can enjoy!

I have tried different flour combinations before if you see my gluten-free baking category with oat and rice flour combination. Almond flour makes the best texture and moisture so far. You can use oat flour + rice flour + some sunflower seed meal+ more starch and add a 1/2 tsp xanthan gum and make it. Make a thicker batter than pictured, and bake a muffin to see if it bakes well before baking a loaf. If the muffin falls a bit after baking, you can add a bit more flour to the batter and adjust before baking the loaf. You also want to cover the loaf with a kitchen towel while cooling as rice and oat flours loose moisture quickly.

Wow thank you so much for this recipe! I was wondering…..can I leave out the sugar? And could another starch be used other than potato? corn (non-gmo of course)? …otherwise I can eat everything in this cake….thank you so much!

I havent tried it with corn, but it might work. You can leave out the sugar if you have enough balance of dates, currants, etc dried sweet fruit. Chop the dates small for good distribution of sweetness.

I’m going to try a pre-mixed gluten-free flour with some almond flour. My guys have been asking for something like the extremely decadent poppy seed cake we used to get for Christmas morning. Thank you for sharing your inspiring recipes! It always brightens my day when I see one in my inbox.

I made this today, and it is absolutely delicious with great texture! The only change I made in the recipe is I used buckwheat flour instead of rice flour. I loved fruitcake as a child, but this is much lighter and not so sweet. ❤️

I tried this yesterday’s & the flavor is amazing, but mine didn’t slice well-crumbled after well cooked. I followed you recipe to a T-should the chia have been ground? I used a silicone loaf pan. I will try again because it was scrumptious even if crumbly!

Try refrigerating it for half an hour and use a serrated knife. It is a pretty sturdy loaf. The edges might be crustier to penetrate, so chilling and a very sharp knife or a serrated knife is helpful to help with easy slicing.

Hello! I just made this cake and it was absolutely delicious. Only problem is that even after refirgerating, it was really crumbly. W hat do you think about adding an egg? Or what would make it stick a little better? Thanks!

I am going to try and make this recipe in my bread machine one of these days but I was wondering if you could recommend a substitute for the oil? Or does leaving it out not affect the cake except for the crust?

I just made this recipe and it baked really well. Sadly, it is sticking to the bottom of my loaf pan and only partially came out of my pan, which is very disappointing. I did grease the pan. I probably should of used parchment paper. Next year!

oh no. i always line the pans with parchment. sometimes the pans lose some of the non stikness with age and some batters tend to stick a bit more than other batters, so i always line the pan. hope it tasted great otherwise

I will definitely be using parchment next time. My fruit and nut mix was heavy on the fruit side, so I think that contributed to sticking. I did freeze the cake for a bit and it helped release a bit more to make it salvageable for Christmas. Despite the problem, the cake tastes amazing. Just how the fruit cakes of my youth, tasted. I will be making this again. Thank you!